<Award of Resilience, Award of Best Caregiver>
“Congratulations to both of you!”
How was I to know that I will hear such words of celebration when I go to see the patient at the professor’s office in the hospital, especially when you’re seeing the one who was diagnosed stage 4 pulmonary cancer. The medical practice and the surrounding circumstances that I have faced so far back in Korea were mostly concerned with delivering the bad news and methods of comfort for those patients with potential lament.
“Is this thing really for me? Why?”
Being used to hearing the heartbreaking news, I could sense the irritation and fear of patients whenever doctors were trying to say something to patients who were already diagnosed with cancer with a pessimistic prognosis. Patients who were given ‘The Awards Of Resilience’ today were not the exceptions as well. Even though the professor told them he was going to give them the awards which would be the good news for most of us, the very first word from patient B was coming from the worries. Of course I am not trying to neglect the few, but not too neglectable case like patient M, asking the professor with some jokes like
“Are you going to bring me some nice cakes?”
Contemplating the term ‘Resilience’ for their awards, I come across in my mind the long, chilling tunnel with complete darkness that people stumble to walk through with utter loneliness. We do not talk about resilience for someone who came from the well paved paths which were easily appreciated. Not the first, but the most impressive moment recently when I thought about the meaning of the word ‘Resilience’ was back when I watched the movie ‘Batman Begins’ by the director Christopher Nolan, the film that focuses on the figure Bruce Wayne from back to his childhood on the way to eventually becoming the Batman. Bruce Wayne has his trauma on bats, because of his childhood experience falling off from his home into a very dark deep cave where countless bats dwell in. After being rescued by his dad who dies later from murder of robbery, Bruce asks his father why do people fall off. His dad tells Bruce “We fall so as to learn to pick ourselves up”. Being one of the few vague memories of his father, this sentence made him develop his perspective on what suffering means to him. In this way, Bruce Wayne not only overcomes bats, which symbolizes his traumatizing experiences from childhood, but also takes advantage of them to strengthen himself, which leads to the birth of the Batman that we know.
Not only from DC comics hero but also the actor Robert Downey Jr., who made his role as the famous Marvel comics hero ‘Iron Man’, is the witness of a powerful experience of resilience. Once a promising rising star in Hollywood, he was arrested on charges related to drugs including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. Several years of substance abuse, arrests, rehabs, and relapse had followed, along with divorce as well. He later confessed to Oprah Winfrey that the hardest thing to overcome this rush of difficulties in his life was to make a decision to overcome his situation. After his determination and reaching out for help, his friends including Mel Gibson helped him get back to his life and career, succeeded by his famous successful role as the ‘Iron Man’. I believe that his suffers in his life and comeback have made him portray the characters of ‘Tony Stark’ and ‘Iron Man’ in more convincing way; who is the successful businessman, inventor, engineer, and super-hero in one hand, and a single man with a traumatized childhood background who suffers from loneliness and mistrust on people including his friends.
What these two superheroes have in common is that they have people nearby who care for them so much. Suffering itself is too demanding for us to be fantasized as a blessing or a gift; it hurts not only ourselves but also tortures people around us as well. Often we find people in suffering put into stumble, and the way their optimistic characters are turned into one with pessimism, watching these changes with little to help hurts us even more. People who concern their people in challenges are often required to care both the people they concern and themselves as well. Like most of the events in our lives, the recovery process also asks us to show teamwork with devoted dedication and thoughtful concerns.
We are happy to join the dream team of superheroes that I have met in professor Chae’s outpatient clinic; along with patients, the caregivers including their family and friends, doctors, nurses, other workers in the hospital, and more. It is not only the patients that get help from these struggles against cancer; this journey together as a team also helps us grow up to understand ourselves even more. I believe that suffering is given as a gift not by the suffering itself; but as the opportunity to find ourselves as a team, holding our hands tight with affection to each other. We ourselves are ‘Award of Resilience’ and ‘Award of Best Caregiver’, priceless.
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